Chris Tkach of Idle Hands Craft Ales (Photo: Susanna Bolle)
There is some great beer brewing in small batches, and in equally small breweries these day. As if micro-breweries weren’t small enough, nano-breweries, which often brew no more than one batch of beer at any given time — are an increasingly popular and innovative segment of the craft beer world. These breweries intentionally keep their operations small, often brewing only a few varieties of beer in limited quantities, and their distribution local… very local. And while this isn’t beer that’s easy to find, it is beer that is often well worth the effort to seek out.
Though there has been a minor profusion of such small breweries around the country, locally, nano-brewing is just starting to take root. One of the few Boston-based nano-breweries (if not the only one currently up and running) is Idle Hands Craft Ales. Based in Everett, Idle Hands is run by Chris and Grace Tkach, who specialize in Belgian-inspired beers.
The brewery grew out of Chris’ 17 years of experience as a home brewer. At home, he experimented with everything from English-style ales to hopped-up American-style brews. His interest in Belgian ales was sparked by his future wife’s love of the style. “On our first date,” he says, “she ordered a Chimay Red. That sparked my interest in her, because I knew right away that she understood good beer, and since I knew she had an appreciation for Belgian style beers, I wanted to start creating some for her. Then I just kind of fell in love with them.”
What fueled his interest in the style was the subtlety and complexity of the beer itself. Belgian beer, with its openness to experimentation, stands at the pinnacle of most beer connoisseurs’ stylistic hierarchies (unless said beer connoisseur is German). “There are a lot of things going on,” Tkach says of Belgian beers. “Whereas American-style beers tend to blast your palate with hops, the Belgians take a more restrained approach where the yeast itself is more expressive. It’s the yeast that does the talking and [as a brewer] it’s a matter of how you can coax the yeast into doing different things.” Continue reading
